


all of time and space

by charleybradburies



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Comics), Doctor Who - Various Authors
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Candles, Community: 100_women, Community: 1_million_words, Community: hc_bingo, Community: who_contest, Female-Centric, Future Fic, Gen, Implied Relationships, Multiple Selves, On the Run, One Shot, POV Female Character, Rescue, Self-cest, Snow, Time Shenanigans, Time Travel, Walking, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:19:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5198804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Where do you want to start?</i>
</p>
<p>who-contest | one shot challenge #43: candle</p>
            </blockquote>





	all of time and space

**Author's Note:**

> also;   
> h/c bingo | undeserved reputation  
> 100-women | #95: Found  
> 1-million-words | Blow Me Away: Walking, After Midnight

Ghost story, love story, what did it matter? She was all alone here now, wasn’t she, either way? Alone with nothing to show for it, nothing at all, just...tears. And a burning hope for a life she could never have, for freedom…

“Ouch!” 

And apparently, a candle that wasn’t quite as done burning out as she’d thought it was, if the pain in her hand was anything to evince it. 

So, what was that now, all that she had? Tears, hope, pain, candle… _snow._ The view through the window is quickly getting lighter, even though it’s the middle of the night, which would be curious as it couldn’t possibly be dawn already - but no, Clara can see the snow falling. It’s growing thicker by the second, snowflakes clinging lovingly to each other. 

She sets the candle down on her vanity and gathers up the front of her dress in her hands, and rushes to the window to look out onto the grounds below.

Perhaps her glee was childish, but perhaps, instead, all was not lost. 

_Perhaps even I am not lost._

Clara did know her way around town after all. What did it matter that she was a governess without children to, well, govern? A mistress without a master? She wasn’t incomplete, was she, just on those accounts? She couldn’t be. She was nothing if that was true, indeed, and clearly she wasn’t _nothing._ No one was ever _nothing,_ whether the wind’s blown in their favor or not. 

It’s certainly not blown in hers, now that all she’d known is gone, blown away with the leaves of the early autumn that’s come and passed. Her livelihood, her reputation...perhaps she was the madwoman she was believed to be, and her sanity’s escaped her, too, although she dearly hopes that’s not so.

A chill runs through her, all the way down her spine, and she turns away from the window. She clumsily searches for the fur cap she’d tossed somewhere in her chamber, and eventually finds it hanging off of one of the mirrors of her vanity; she squints at herself as she shoves it onto her head. She felt not like bothering with her hair, though she knew it was messy. She hadn’t any children for whom to bear example, besides. What could be the harm? 

The street is empty of everything but snow, and as she gazes down at the peaceful scene Clara thinks of it more fondly than she remembers doing in a long time. She’s not had the chance to simply admire anything for a good few years now; the chance is strange, but not in an unpleasant way. It was an unexpectedly colorful view, light reflecting off both the snow that was piling up on the ground and off people’s Yule decorations. It was really quite enchanting, Clara thought. 

In a decision of whimsy, she flicks open her window and maneuvers herself out onto the vine that cascades down the outer red brick wall of her accommodating hostel, and in only a few more moves, down to the street. Her drop is slight and short, but the snow is new, and she falls backward onto her bum immediately after she lands, and she takes a moment of rest after she stands herself back up. The snow is easy enough to shake off her dress, and she’s lucky none of it seems to have gotten into her boots, so the current moment remains as good as any to explore. That’s what the Doctor did, didn’t he? He was an explorer - that’s what he’d said. A doctor of exploring, which was an odd sort of doctor to be, but he had seemed to be a bit odd himself in the first place. 

Besides, wasn’t _she_? Wasn’t everyone? Surely it was simply that some people were wont to hide their oddness. Others didn’t bother, and still others weren’t able, and then there were some people whose only oddness was that they were too boring to seem odd. They were tragedies, they were. 

There’s a prayer inside her that she’s not a tragedy, too, some formerly esteemed young lady whose fall from grace would remain entangled with her for her entire life. She didn’t want all her years to be soured by wanting something impossible.

Clara thinks it must be terribly exciting, though, to be a doctor of exploring. If by some act of God he did return for her, a prospect she’s nearly given up on, she’d surely go with him. She was long past due a great adventure. 

She’s about to turn round a corner when she hears something that sounds quite like a whisper, and she stops dead in her tracks. 

Now that she’s not moving, Clara can hear the two sets of footsteps coming her way.

“Doctor! Doctor, where are you-” 

“Shh!”

_He came for me._

Her heart jumps. 

“Doctor!” she yelps.

“Clara!” comes a man’s deep voice.

“What?” another voice responds, and Clara sprints around the corner and into the cross-street, and sees not her Doctor but an older man and a young - herself. A young woman who looks precisely like her...but _she_ seems rather unsurprised by the matter. 

“I am very late, and very sorry,” the old man says, and Clara gasps because she _realizes._

“Doctor?”

He smiles, and a tear comes to her eye, which she swiftly dabs away with one of her cold hands. 

“Hello, Clara.”

“Doctor, you came!” 

He walks towards her, and picks up her hands; his gloves are very soft, and warm compared to her own, and he curls his hands around hers. 

“I will always come for you, Clara Oswald.”

She grins back at him, only able to believe him because of his touch...and the eyes. His eyes were the same, and he was in them. _Her Doctor._

She throws herself into a short, forceful hug. He seems reluctant to respond in kind, but he does so anyway. 

Clara presses her eyes shut and opens them again. The view is the same, and off to the side, the same woman, whose smile is a beam even before Clara glances over at her. She’s wearing trousers and a jacket that resembles but is shorter than a riding jacket, and her hair is the same color as Clara’s, but it’s not at all done up and hangs to her shoulders. 

“Clara, meet Clara. Clara, meet Clara,” the Doctor says after she releases him from their hug, alternating the direction in which he nods his head toward them as he speaks. 

“You’re me,” Clara restates to the other woman, who raises her eyebrows as though she’s already certain of what’s going on.

“And you’re me.”

Clara looks back to the Doctor, and he sighs sharply. 

“It’s a very long story.”

The other Clara smiles gleefully, and the Doctor pulls out a key from the breast pocket of his suitcoat. An odd, but familiar, whirring noise fills the air, and a large blue...something appears in the street all of a sudden (although, not all at once, as it seems to falter once or twice, like it’s a horse stopping to consider where it should put its hooves before landing). 

The Doctor goes over wordlessly, and opens a door; the other Clara stretches her arm out to Clara, and Clara doesn’t think twice before grabbing her hand and joining her in running inside the tall blue box.

“Good thing we’ve got all the time in the world,” says the other Clara, closing the door behind them with the hand not holding Clara’s.


End file.
